Maextro’s brake pedal failures on the V800 luxury MPV are making waves in China, with Huawei and ex-NIO manufacturer JAC scrambling to do damage control. Other automakers, though, are jumping on the bandwagon to show off their safety and tech prowess.

Yangwang, BYD’s luxury flagship brand, has joined the fray, with Zheng Yu, the marque’s assistant general manager, showing off fully metal brackets and pedals on Weibo, a Chinese social platform. This contrasts with the Maextro V800, which uses glass-fibre-reinforced polypropylene for its brake pedal base.

The general manager assistant is seen showing off two brake pedal assemblies: one from the U7 sedan and one from the U8 and U8L luxury SUVs He states that both assemblies are “fully metal”, with the pedal arms and attachment bases made from stamped steel.

The assistant also discloses Yangwang’s vehicle development standards, emphasising that the marque specifies a maximum pedal force of 2,500 N. This exceeds China’s national standards, which require brake pedals to withstand 2,000 N for 5 seconds without snapping.

The video concludes with the assistant extolling the virtues of BYD’s e⁴ quad-motor platform, which claims to provide independent wheel torque control and emergency regenerative braking during brake failures. It’s unclear if Yangwang’s vehicles can detect brake pedal failures, though.

Maextro is the flagship brand in Huawei’s Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA) ecosystem, with the V800 MPV in question retailing for 1.016 million yuan (149,700 USD). Yangwang also intends to compete in this price range, with multiple models going beyond the million-yuan mark.

Maextro has responded to the failures, pledging to offer redesigned brake pedal brackets for free to existing V800 owners. The incident, though, is likely to damage Maextro and JAC’s credibility, the latter being traditionally seen as a budget automaker.

More auto brands in China are expected to jump on the brake-pedal bandwagon and capitalise on this unusual failure. HIMA has already been in the spotlight, with the Seres-Huawei split over Aito previously making headlines in the country.

Source: Weibo – Zai Xia Zheng Yu